Machinist of Mana

The day after my visit to the Royal Society I ended up in a heavily fortified building with Grandpa Shadestone. He'd reserved a private room for today's activities at this facility, and was waiting when I arrived.

The room itself was perhaps thirty feet wide and around a hundred and fifty as long, with a counter and separated bays. He stood at one of these, with several weapons laid out upon the bay and targets set up in the distance. One of the servants had escorted me here, since everyone else was busy, but so far as I knew he would be taking me back home.

“Come here Percival and take a look,” he invited me as I came in, motioning to the table.

I did as he bade me, looking over the weapons on the table. They looked much like guns from my previous world, though all appeared to be either muzzle or breach loaders, and all were single shot. While there were some stylistic differences there were few, since really there only were so many ways to comfortably hold something like a gun. There was also a lack of something like a pistol.

Compared to the rest of the world this being so primitive was a bit surprising. There were plenty of machines, simple and otherwise, but nobody had added that to weaponry. Perhaps that was due to the newness of mechanization, or maybe the presence of magic was seen as such a tipping point that they just weren't used, I'd not figured that out yet.

“Well, I'm glad to see you didn't touch any of them,” Grandpa Shadestone observed.

“Of course not, they're weapons,” I answered.

“Good answer Percival, but tell me this, which ones are loaded?” he asked, chortling but continuing to watch me.

“As far as I'm aware, all of them,” I replied confidently.

“I was looking for 'I don't know' but that's not a bad answer either. One can never tell if a gun is loaded or not Percival, so you should always treat them as such. Sometimes you can't even tell the difference between real and fake ones, so they should be treated as real.” I nodded, that was basic gun safety.

“Of course grandpa.”

“I also want you to think about what's in front of them. Make sure you know where the dangerous end is pointed at all times, and never let it point at anything of value.” Once more I nodded agreement.

This fell right in with the basics of gun safety from my old world. Sometimes the order differed or the specific wording, but the general rules were as followed.

Always treat every gun like it is always loaded.

Never point a gun at something you're not willing to destroy.

Keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot.

Know your target and what is behind it.

It was widely observed that so long as those rules were followed accidents were very unlikely. Normally you had to break more than one for something to go truly wrong, something I didn't want.

“Now, let's cover some of the basics.”

Before I was allowed to shoot my grandpa showed me how to clear each of these. Then he showed me how to clean them in exacting detail. These were important and also had the advantage of getting me an even better look at the internals, though those weren't very impressive.

We started with the muzzle-loaders, something I'd never dealt with in my old life. They were a pain, requiring a slow, multi-step process to clear, ready, and load before they could shoot. You really, really didn't want anything going wrong with these, as your hand might well be in the way while you were putting the powder in and they made me slightly uncomfortable on the whole.

Once one was loaded I was run through the basics of shooting, stance, aim, and the like, and also given earmuffs. The sights used in this world were a bit different than I was used to, but worked on the same concept. It was just that they used more decorative shapes rather than just raised bars. In retrospect though that might have been because these belonged to a nobleman.

After a few shots Grandpa Shadestone had us take a break.

“Not bad Percival, not bad at all. Maybe you should come hunting with me next year,” he said with a smile.

“Mother would lose her mind,” I retorted, earning me a hearty laugh.

“That she would, that she would. Well, let's move on.”

The breach loading weapons were a lot easier. They functioned like a lot of shotguns from back on Earth, though there were a few oddities here and there. The paper cartridges were odd to me, having been something long out of style on Earth before I was born. Sure, the concept was the same, but the care was different, something I was informed on as we worked our way thought these. I was quizzed on the rules and methods throughout, each being drilled into me, and I couldn't say I disapproved at all.

After everything was cleaned and put away we went to look at the results. Grandpa seemed quite pleased but to me the results were... unsatisfactory. I was very out of practice and these items weren't made for someone of my size, add to that the unfamiliarity and my shots were nowhere near what they should have been at these ranges. It was a bit disappointing to see how I'd done, even if my grandpa assured me that it was very good for a first-timer.

“That was fun, thank you,” I said as we finished.

“Oh-ho? Enjoyed yourself then? We can come back some time if you want. Be a good idea to go over things more than once anyway,” Grandpa Shadestone offered.

“Please,” I responded.

Before I even made it back to our carriage I was running through all the different things I could do. There were so many tools I'd need, so many specialized bits and bobs if I wanted to make things like I'd had before. Where would I even start? Making my own weapons would come in time, but which to go with? What would be the best designs and methods to use? With the available technology could I even reasonably make anything? The last answer was quick to pop into my head. I most definitely could make a lot of things, and things this world had never seen.

That of course led to the moral question of if I should. Was it wrong to introduce things like that? I could follow the whole moral idea of the 'Prime Directive' but that seemed stupid, and if war came, then I decidedly wanted my people to win. The best way to ensure that would be to make sure that things were ready to go and laid out.